The present invention relates to a technique for evaluating a degree of consonance or dissonance between a plurality of sounds.
Heretofore, there have been proposed techniques for evaluating a degree of an auditory difference (i.e., consonance or dissonance) between a plurality of sounds. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2007-316416 (hereinafter referred to as “Patent Literature 1”) and International Publication WO 2006/079813 (hereinafter referred to as “Patent Literature 2”), for example, disclose techniques for measuring a difference in pitch between a singing voice sound of a user and a normative sound (i.e., model sound) and correcting the pitch of the singing sound.
However, with the techniques disclosed in Patent Literature 1 and Patent Literature 2, where it is necessary to detect the pitches (fundamental frequencies) of the singing sound and the model sound in order to evaluate a degree of difference between the singing sound and the model sound, there would arise the problem that, if the singing sound and the model sound greatly differ from each other in pitch, a degree of consonance or dissonance between the two sounds can not be evaluated appropriately. Although the foregoing have discussed the prior art problem involved in evaluating singing sounds, a similar problem would arise when evaluating other sounds than singing sounds, such as tones performed by musical instruments.